HP drops Windows Home Server "Vail"
Summary: HP, which was one of Microsoft's premium partners for the Windows Home Server platform, has announced that it is to drop the platform and focus on webOS. This move come days after Microsoft announced it was dropping the popular Drive Extender feature from the next incarnation of the Home Server platform.
HP, which was one of Microsoft's premium partners for the Windows Home Server platform, has announced that it is to drop the platform and focus on webOS. This move come days after Microsoft announced it was dropping the popular Drive Extender feature from the next incarnation of the Home Server platform.
This from Microsoft's Windows Home Server blog:
You may have seen some blogs posts about HP’s decision announcing the retirement of their MediaSmart Server line, which includes Windows Home Server. As such, HP has told us they do not plan to provide a platform for Windows Home Server code name “Vail”. HP has told us they will continue to sell the existing version of MediaSmart Server through the end of the calendar year 2010 and will honor service and support agreements.
Was Microsoft's decision to drop Drive Extender the reason behind this? Not according to Microsoft:
This news is in no way related to recent announcements about feature changes in Windows Home Server “Vail.”
Allen Buckner, Marketing Manager for the former Home Server Group at HP, conforms this in an interview with MediaSmartServer.net, saying that the decision was down to "shifting additional resources to focus on webOS initiatives." In other words, HP doesn't feel that a home server needs to be encumbered by a $150 Windows OS.
Bottom line, while WHS has a band of loyal and fervent followers, the overall market for a home server can't be that big, especially given the proliferation of NAS boxes, cloud storage and USB drives these days. Windows Home Server was overkill, a sledgehammer to crack a nut, a solution to a problem that didn't really exist.
Things aren't looking good for Vail. Microsoft drops a popular feature, then Microsoft Press cancels an upcoming book on the OS, and now a premium partner pulls out.
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Talkback
Home server market isn't that big
I can't see a webOS server selling any more, I wonder if it may sell even less?
Don't know why MSFT has many flavors of servers
What about desktops? Raofl nt
Re: Don't know why MSFT has so many flavors of servers
Funny I do not know why there are so many flavors of Linux on either the desktop or server side of things. 4 versions of server with 3 aimed at enterprise/business and the other aimed at home and maybe small business is not that much. Same with the Desktop side. 1 version aimed at low power netbooks and the other 3 aimed at home and business/enterprise with a bit of overlap. Not that many if you think about it and it is not like they are mysteriously named.
Just the beginning
Desktop market is more complicate, as it's dominated by interoPerability and applications. MS is stuck with its profitable windows and office lines, deminishing share of total consumer IT spend.
To be honest
And honestly, I have been using 2008 R2 at home with no problems.
Indeed.
I'll answer your question
[i]Why would anyone use WHS anyway?[/i]
My first WHS was a DIY and I agree with you, I wasn't totally sold. Then I bought my HP MediaSmart WHS and it totally changed my mind.
WHS is an OS that was never meant to be sold as an OS on a disc, it was meant to be sold as part of a hardware appliance. So for Cdn$400, I got a very small, nearly silent HP server with 4 hot swappable drive bays (one with a 1TB HD) that open from the front and require absolutely no screws to add / remove drives. Without turning off my server, I can open the front of the server, pull out the HD caddy, pop an HD into it, and slide it back in and start using it about 1 minute later without partitioning, no new drive letters, no allocating space to different shares. In 2 minutes, you've added 2TBs to your pool of storage.
There is no monitor port, just a network port and 100% of the configuration is performed via web browser (though you can RDP in if you really want to). While MS has made fantastic strides with remote management of their server OSs (to the point where Server 2008 Core is meant to be 100% remotely managed), all of this "Just Works" out of the box with WHS.
I have thankfully never needed to do this but if something goes wrong with the server, you pop the recovery disk into a computer on the network (MediaSmart has no DVD drive), run the recovery software, reboot the WHS in recovery mode (there is a hardware button for this on the MediaSmart), the recovery software detects the WHS in recovery mode on the network, and starts fixing it.
Now, if all of this sounds like Drobo, you are right. I was about to buy a Drobo after trying WHS on my DIY computer. A friend of mine suggested I at least look at the HP MediaSmart and I found that it was about the same price as the Drobo but the Drobo had no network connectivity (this is an add-on I would have to buy), no integrated backup / restore system, no remote connectivity, and no possibility of ever being used as anything other than a Drobo (WHS is still a Windows Server 2003 under the hood, allowing you to run any server service you choose from your WHS).
It's funny because people accuse MS of copying Apple all the time with Windows or Zune or WP7 but I would say that WHS was MS's most Apple like product. Absolutely everything about WHS was designed to "Just Work" right out of the box and MS totally succeeded in achieving that goal. And all of this [b]before[/b] Time Capsule came out.
So that is why *I* use WHS. It truly was a "fire-and-forget" purchase. I opened the box, plugged the MediaSmart into the wall, hooked up a network cable, went through a small configuration process on my desktop (to name the WHS and to add me as a user) and WHS was running.
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
Enjoy another failure.
They'll get over this failure
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
Microsoft has a lock on Desktop PC OS Market and this will keep them very profitable
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
Yes, I'm a total failure, making six figures a year sucks so bad. Damn me.
Don't you mean
It was a stupid move on HPs part? After all they are the ones dropping the product line for their WebOS they purchased from Palm. WHS is a great product that was not properly marketed. Maybe that is because WHS was kind of a test run and despite it not being widely adopted I think it went very well because all I hear about it is good things from the people that have one and from my experience using my brothers and my friends it has been very good indeed. IMO WHS is a perfect addition for households with 2 or more PCs that have media and files to store and share and went them highly accessible. They can also back up their individual PCs and in the event of failure such as a hard drive going out of if they want to upgrade that hard drive they can be back online with their computer like nothing ever happened in a few clicks.
Not just Vail. The current version too:
www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/11/30/hp-withdraws-from-windows-home-server-discontinues-the-mediasmart-server-and-data-vault/
It truly is sad
The sad thing is that while people are running around trying to manage backups and folders on multiple external hard drives from multiple desktops and laptops, they could have spent a tiny bit more and gotten a real solution. Yet again though, you would never know about this fine product unless, like me, a friend told you about it.
RE: HP drops Windows Home Server
And I think you hit the nail on the head. It is definitely something that was not advertised and only the computer enthusiasts really knew about it and it only spread by word of mouth. I was skeptical at first too until I saw what it could do in terms of simple management. Easy enough for the average computer user but powerful enough for the computer enthusiasts that can use a server without breaking the bank. For $99 it was a good deal. What does server 2008 STD cost? $600?
I doubt you've tried it
WHS restore is fantastic
[i]The automatic backup feature of WHS was *very* easy to use and for me it has been fully reliable.[/i]
A few months ago I bought a new HD for my desktop and it failed about 2 weeks later. Exchanged it for a new one, installed it, booted of the restore disc (boots the desktop into Windows PE), it found my WHS on the network, asked which date I wanted to restore from, I selected it, and 30 minutes later, my desktop was fully restored, no need to reinstall any programs, change any settings, etc.
Brilliant. Easy. Beats anything else on the market.